Rally: Communal Prayers for Lovers of Jesus and Justice

By Britney Winn Lee

“This is a prayer book for revolution--a revolution of love and compassion and justice,” Shane Claiborne writes in the foreword. The prayers in this collection are meant to be prayed in community.

Rally is a prayer book for faith communities searching for words to respond to the injustices around them. It’s a prayer book for Christian activists who believe in putting feet to their prayers. The book supplies words for concerned Christians who yearn to lift their voices to God about such issues as racism; the abuse of power and privilege; mistreatment of migrants and refugees; lives tragically lost; our violent society; white supremacy; and people being marginalized because of their gender, ethnic identity, sexual orientation, or economic status. Rally contains prayers for perpetrators, for loving our bodies, for listening to one another, for those who have been wounded by the church. In this resource, readers will find prayers that evoke hope and connection, guidance for sifting through the news and social media headlines, laments about destruction of the earth, and pleas for loving alike though we don’t think alike.

The beauty of this book lies in the rich variety of voices and experiences of its writers—leaders who work at the intersection of Christianity and social justice and who want to resource those who gather to lament the needs and celebrate the possibilities of a better world. “Lord, stir us up to holy action,” cries this powerful book. Rally spurs people to compassionately continue the important work of loving God and neighbor until all of God’s people feel safe and seen.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fresh Air Books
• Release date: Aug 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781935205333

Britney Winn Lee

Britney Winn Lee writes to make room. She is a faith-rooted writer and pastor living in Shreveport, LA, with her creative husband and big-hearted son. She is the author of The Boy with Big, Big Feelings and The Girl With Big, Big Questions and is the editor of Rally: Litanies for the Lovers of God and Neighbor. A lifelong lover of the story of faith, Lee centers her work on wrestling through, dreaming about, and experimenting with how to better connect the church with the world. See what she's creating at www.britneywinnlee.com and on social media @britneywinnlee.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

I

n front of a one-hundred-and-twenty-year-old chapel, where I sometimes offer liturgical services on topics of justice and faith, in Shreveport, Louisiana, well-manicured flower beds line a concrete path. I have thought a lot about that concrete path over the last couple of years and the land on which it rests semi-permanently. For whom has that path provided a warm invitation—the privileged or the marginalized, the rich or the poor? For whom has it offered a means of heartbreaking exit—how many Black and Brown persons have felt unseen, how many LGBTQIA+ persons have felt unwelcome? Who first lived on the path’s land when the city was but woods, when indigenous families stewarded these acres and called them home? Who was terrorized on this plot when the river lands were fields—when this parish was given the name Bloody Caddo due to the post-Civil-War lynchings of Black people that took place here? Who walked this path while fighting for a new reality—who marched for civil rights, for the rights of women, for gun control, and for same-sex marriage? And who didn’t?

The work for this book began during a time of great anxiety in this country and in the church. And in the years since, I’ve seen Black and Brown bodies that were disturbingly susceptible to police brutality, a migrant caravan marching toward a militarized welcome, children held in cages and separated from their parents seeking safety, politicians whose rise to office made women feel less safe to exist, tiki torches of white supremacists haunting the night, violence begetting violence ignored or justified by Christians. These have been anxious days.

But in those same years, I’ve heard raised voices ready to fight for justice. I’ve seen art so evocative and important that I could not look away. I’ve heard howling songs, read hopeful scripture interpretations, and partaken in creative organizing. The old saw visions, and the young dreamed dreams. The determined sought to see God in the other, and the resolved sowed love in a hurting world. Everybody was a little bit scared or angry, I imagine us saying about these years, but we never forgot how to sing.

As I approached that old chapel on my way to work one morning some time ago, I felt heavy and defeated with the news of Earth’s deteriorating climate and America’s divided citizens. Additionally, what would later be known simply as Charlottesville had taken place the day before. I had been at my parents’ house in Louisiana, fifteen hours away from the city in Virginia where protesters and counter-protesters had gathered. Like much of the United States, I followed a steady stream of social media updates covering the event’s rising tensions. With my phone on the bathroom counter, I leaned over, head in hands, watching the screen as faith leaders gathered to sing down the ultra-nationalist attendees of the largest white supremacist event in recent history.

That afternoon, Heather Heyer was killed by a car intentionally rammed into a crowd of anti-racist demonstrators. As her name joined the ever-growing list of those lost on the battlegrounds of injustice—alongside Sandra Bland, Trayvon Martin, Philando Castile, Felipe Gómez Alonzo, Kendrick Castillo, Alton Sterling, Michael Brown (the list, devastatingly long)—I grew more afraid of being alive in this place at this time. I watched online and over texts as friends and faith leaders wondered aloud, What will we say when we gather with our communities now? The night was bleak and isolating.

But the morning brought with it small, stubborn reminders of life. In the sidewalk leading to the chapel, as I approached my work with a two-ton heart, I saw them: a row of three-inch-high purple blooms, bursting through the powerful and imposing concrete, frail but vibrant. They’re protesting, I thought. Life will not be held down forever. Those plants offered the truth that I needed when I didn’t know what to pray. Over the next few hours, I wrote a liturgical litany titled Sound the Alarm, which is the first litany in this book. That piece led to a journey of rallying diverse and informed voices in an effort to create a collection of communal prayers that might further provide hope to those who could use a bit more.

The Greek word leitourgia, from which we get our word liturgy, is commonly translated as the work of the people. In researching for this book, one of my favorite understandings of liturgy that I found was a gift . . . for the relief of the needy.¹ And we all have needs, don’t we? If our times have told us anything, it is this. We are a people who need one another, living in a world that needs renewal. This book is intended, in part, to be a gift for the relief of the needy, but it is also the protest of a communal voice that says to the abuse of power and the threat of death, Life will break through—eventually. And every single time.

Lamentations for injustices and declarations for a world restored, written by and for the people of God, are no more new than the sicknesses that necessitate them. We hear the same song in Amos and the Psalms, in Isaiah and Mary’s Magnificat, in the cotton fields of a bloody South and the marches of the Civil Rights Movement and the new Poor People’s Campaign. Prophetic artists and writers, grieving preachers, raging mamas, and fiery youths have things to say and things to make. We cannot offer one another enough resources right now for hope, connection, and reminders of the imago dei in our enemies and our oppressed neighbors. We cannot not be the shoots of life pushing through the cracks, the words for those who ache when they don’t know what to pray. For these reasons, nearly fifty truly remarkable people have worked to create this collection of prayers—prayers that offer words of repentance and hope that can be said together as we gather and grieve, meditate and organize for such a time as this.

When I was younger, I believed written prayers tucked away in the pages of dusty hymnals to be stagnant, crafted by dead men with dead ideas. But when I became a part of an intentional community in my twenties that prayed each morning from Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals and shared the joys and losses of everyday life, liturgy became the thread in my soul that stitched me to a place and its people. When our community closed its doors a few years ago, the collective reading of the prayers was what I missed most. I miss it still.

Litanies offer a radical welcome to people in that they remove intimidation participants may feel in entering into communal prayer. Litanies say, We are here, and the grace is that we can connect without the pressure to conjure, perform, or be anything other than what we are. Litanies are a rhythmic dance laced with the lamentations and joy of old spirituals, a sacred inhale and exhale for when we find ourselves asking, What will we say when we gather? Litanies are about the collective breath, intended to center our action with mindfulness and togetherness, to be a resource for wordless people, to be a way for the Spirit to intercede, [helping] us in our weakness when we do not know how to pray (Rom. 8:26). I hope this book can be the catalyst for drawing near to one another so that we can remind ourselves and others that we are wildly loved, that we have been invited to love God with our whole beings and to love our neighbors as if they were our whole beings.

For those who are new to using call-and-response prayers, I should mention that this book was designed to be read in a communal context, typically with one voice calling (indicated by regular font) and the community responding (indicated by bold font). Some of the litanies are written as lamentations from the marginalized, while others are confessions from the privileged. I ask that anyone who reads or uses these litanies to respect and honor each litany’s writer and their context. Not all prayers in this book are intended for all people, though each one can teach us something about our faith and our neighbors. May we consider who we ask to lead these litanies in our churches, faith communities, and gatherings. Is there an individual whose life and history makes them a better fit for leading the exchange? And may we consider where these prayers are leading us, as we hear our own experiences voiced or as we gain insight into others’ experiences. Toward what research, action, and stories are the prayers directing us so that we may become the answers to our own prayers? How can we partner with others—perhaps even with a contributor in this book—to further our own contemplation and action?

This collection is not exhaustive. To those who do not see themselves and their grief in these pages, I apologize. I believe that we all are important and loved; I believe there is room for everyone in these spaces. May we keep writing and reading prayers until all God’s people feel safe, seen, and heard.

Winter and weed-eaters and chemicals will come again. Those small, audacious purple flowers will be ushered back beneath the soil by powers that seem final and in control. But resurrection people know better. There is life coursing underneath the concrete that has always been there, that will always be there. And until the day when all that God first intended is all that there is, we will continue to point one another toward the cracks in a backward kingdom. Where the last are first. And the weak are strong. And the tiniest, persistent prayers and petals can break open an empire and turn it back toward beauty and full life for the whole world.

Keep gathering.

Keep creating.

Keep breathing.

Keep going.

Until we all are there,

Britney

1

Sound the Alarm: A Call to Draw Near During Troubling Times

Britney Winn Lee

I

n the evenings, when my feet are sore from the day’s work and the clothes from Sunday’s unfinished chores are souring in the washing machine, I turn off the dreadful news so that I might stir the mac and cheese, chase my son’s dump truck, and avoid the worries of the world. Folks are tired, of this I’m certain.

As my son and I gallop down our hall, I think about my Twitter feed and the weight that I’ve absorbed just from reading short commentaries on current events and the festering wounds of US history. I’ve got to stop following so many melancholic activists, I think to myself, just seconds before remembering that they’re the ones who are teaching me how not to look away. It’s so important not to look away right now.

But people are weary and nervous. Folks are tired of riding the yo-yos of policy scares and rumors of war, tired of explaining why they matter, tired of loose lips and hateful tones and violent threats, tired of divisions and extremes. They’re tired of watching humans be treated as less than human, tired of wondering if the church is going to make it, if our country’s going to make it. Tired of trying to figure out what power and purpose and time they actually have to do anything. Tired of bad news. Desperate for good.

In response to this exhaustion, I wrote a ULM for the fighters of the good fight who feel constantly bombarded with the waves of a suffering world. It is for anyone who may need the jolt of a communal reminder that we’re not yet done here—that God’s not yet done here. I wrote it for the foolishly hopeful, the irrationally resolved, those who woke up today—despite it all—ready to look for the overlooked and love them with all they’ve got. Those who, as Dorothy Day described, embraced the merciful morning with a willingness to cast their pebble into the pond. So let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as [we] see the Day approaching (Heb. 10:24-25).

ONE: Calling all those partaking in a resurrected life,

Who have known a death that did not kill them.

ALL: Come those with very little left to lose

And those holding most things loosely but love.

We need you.

ONE: Come all who are almost indifferent and undone,

Who are wielding disappointment as vigor.

ALL: Come those who fell asleep in the soul’s dark night

But have awakened with a heart full of hope.

We need you.

ONE: Come with your words—old, eaten, and new.

Come, though uncertain about where it’s all headed.

ALL: Come with your aching need to be heard

And you who are new to the listening.

We need you.

ONE: Come resolved to creatively find third ways.

Come committed to not rushing out of tension.

ALL: Come with eyes unwilling to overlook injustice

And a heart unwilling to forgo celebration.

We need you.

ONE: Come ragamuffin, radical, rebel, repressed.

Come you who were wrong and willing to say it.

ALL: Come refusing to deny the stories of your people.

Come with the assurance of God’s grace as your guide.

We need you.

ONE: Come marchers, intercessors, artists, and prophets.

Come newcomers and those who have tried, tried again.

ALL: Get close, get close, get closer now.

Draw near, ask questions, sing songs, take steps.

We need you together.

ONE: And together, we’ll be patient and mercifully kind—

Not envying, boasting, prideful, or rude.

ALL: Not selfish, short-fused, score-keeping, or spiteful

But rejoicing in the goodness of what’s to be shared.

We need you. We need you together.

ONE: Because together the movement keeps going.

Sound the alarm because love cannot fail.

ALL: Come resisters, revolutionaries, the meek who inherit the earth.

There will indeed be a story to tell.

ONE: And it is this: When the Light was threatened

All God’s people said, Let’s go.

ALL: Let’s go.

2

One Small Step: A Litany for Not Knowing Where to Start Regarding Issues of Justice

Andrew Wilkes

G

od is able to do exceedingly and abundantly more than we can ask for, think about, or imagine. When we recognize injustice, what we can ask for, think about, or imagine may seem like an insufficient response to the injuries affecting us. Feeling unequal to the task, we may avoid doing anything. Our individual responses—or even our institutional ones—in fact may be insufficient. Those possibilities notwithstanding, there is another, deeper truth: God uses seemingly insufficient things to effect justice, to bring about freedom.

We remember the slingshot defeating the giant, widows wearing down unjust judges, exiled people rebuilding broken walls, as we ask, Faithful God, transcend our imaginations, interweave our labor with other communities, and cause the work of our hands, be they few or many, to accelerate the end of patriarchy, racialized capitalism, and inhumane religion.

In the name of Jesus our Liberator and life-renewing Savior, may we who yearn to interrupt injustice start where we are, use what we have, do what we can. If we begin the work, God will undergird it, ushering us and all of creation toward becoming the Beloved Community.

ONE: We affirm that liberation is the divine intent for all human beings, everywhere, in every age, especially for those who are oppressed, minoritized, and exploited.

ALL: Christ, set us free to experience freedom, justice, and peace.

ONE: We commit to upending injustice, working alongside those who are directly impacted.